MUTSAMUDU, Comoros, March 31, 2008 (AFP) - The president of Anjouan's court of appeal, Lailizamane Abdou Cheik, was sworn in Monday as the Comoran island's interim leader, pending elections in two or three months.

'My mission is to organise the election of the president of Anjouan island within two to three months,' Abdou Cheik said after the ceremony, attended by members of the constitutional court of the Union of the Comoros.

He thanked Comoran government soldiers backed by African Union troops for restoring peace after they last week ousted the renegade leader of the Indian Ocean island, Colonel Mohamed Bacar.

The Union of the Comoros consists of three islands in an archipelago each governed by their own leader and parliament, but merged into a federal union with an overall presidency after decades of instability.

Bacar was elected president of Anjouan in 2002, but held a second poll in June 2007 whose legitimacy was not recognised by federal authorities in Moroni, the capital on Grande-Comore, or the African Union.

Government and AU troops invaded Anjouan and ousted Bacar on March 25 after he rejected all calls to stand down. He then fled to Mayotte, the last of the four islands in the archipelago, which is still under French rule.

Abdou Cheik became acting head of state since under Anjouan's constitution, the presidency goes to the chief justice of the court of appeal if there is a vacancy.

Currently, there is a government arrest warrant for Bacar to be extradited back to the Comoros from the French island of Reunion, where he was flown and placed under house arrest on illegal arms possession charges.

Those charges have since been dropped while French authorities plan to expel him from Reunion to a destination that has yet to be disclosed. In the Comoros, he faces war crimes charges.

Anjouan, the federation's second largest island and the only one equipped with a maritime cargo port, seceded completely from the three islands in 1997, before joining again in 2001.